Teacher Service Record (TSR) System Updates For the 2006-2007 School Year General Federal law requires every state to accurately report on the highly qualified status of teachers assigned to core academic subjects in all public schools. It is therefore imperative that districts accurately report positions and assignments for all of their educators in TSR, as this data will be joined to the Teacher Certification Information System (TCIS) to programmatically determine and report to the USDE the number of highly qualified versus not-highly qualified teachers in Illinois. This NCLB HQ data will also be displayed in the Educator Certification System (ECS) for use by district administrators and later this fall will be made available to parents and the general public. Changes in TSR Reporting Changes have been made in the Teacher Service Record (TSR) and the Educator Certification System (ECS) this year in order to capture data consistent with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. Illinois is required to report this data annually. The information received this fall will be part of the early 2007 federal reporting on Highly Qualified Teachers. The requirements for all teachers of core academic subjects to become highly qualified means Teacher Service Record data must reflect all teaching assignments, and those teachers working in NCLB-defined core subject areas must be highly qualified in each core subject area of assignment. Special Educator Reporting The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and NCLB also require faculty who teach students with disabilities or students with limited English proficiency to be qualified in those disciplines (e.g., learning disabilities or teaching of Cantonese) as well as highly qualified by NCLB standards in each core subject assignment where the teacher is the teacher of record. Teachers working in a consultative capacity (in other words, as resource teachers) with individuals with disabilities do not have to have credentials which reflect subject matter competency as they are not the teacher of record; however, all teachers of record (for example, the faculty member in a self-contained setting teaching students with learning disabilities) must hold a full special education certificate in the disability area and must be highly qualified in each core subject area they teach. This reporting process will now be consistent with the Highly Qualified Teacher certification rules of February 2006. Self Contained at K-3 and K-5 Levels The No Child Left Behind Act defines elementary teachers as those at grade five and below; these teachers must either pass the required state exam or must be veteran teachers who can demonstrate through the High Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation (HOUSSE) that they have met the federal standard of knowledge in their assignment. The states are required to report and ensure that teachers have met the NCLB requirement for their core subject assignments Additionally, since teachers who hold an early childhood certificate can be assigned to the K-3 level(if the early childhood certificate has the appropriate grade level endorsement permitting such an assignment), self contained assignments must be reported below grade six as either self contained K-3 or self contained K-5.. 1
Self contained Above Grade Five Faced with the requirements of the federal government in the preceding section, no teacher above grade five may be reported as a self contained teacher. Each such teacher must be listed showing each core academic subject taught during the day. All teachers above grade five must demonstrate in each subject of assignment that they have met the standard applied to secondary teachers; that is, they must hold a state exam, major, advanced degree or advanced certificate in the subject. The Elementary/Middle Grades test will still meet the requirement of the federal government for a demonstration of competence in all subjects at the 6-8 grade level. TSR Assignment Code Updates TSR has been enhanced to allow the reporting of up to seven assignment areas per educator from the previous maximum of three. Districts should report each teaching assignment for which each educator is responsible. ISBE will be gathering HQ data based on Illinois subject assignments that are subsets of the broader NCLB subjects. Teachers will have to be HQ in these Illinois subject assignments and our system will make the link to the following NCLB broad subject areas: Art, Civics and Government, Economics, English, Foreign Languages, Geography, History, Language Arts/Reading, Mathematics, Music, Science, and K-5 Self-Contained. The following is a list of current TSR assignments, along with the broader USDE subject group the assignment has been included in: TSR Assignment Equivalent NCLB Core Subject 001 English (Grades 9-12 Only) English 002 Reading Language Arts/Reading 003 Speech (Grades 9-12 Only) Language Arts/Reading 004 Journalism (Grades 9-12 Only) Language Arts/Reading 005 Drama/Theatre Arts Art 008 Geography (Grades 9-12 Only) Geography 010 Economics (Grades 9-12 Only) Economics 013 General Science (Grades 5-12 Only) Science 014 Biology (Grades 9-12 Only) Science 015 Chemistry (Grades 9-12 Only) Science 016 Physics (Grades 9-12 Only) Science 018 Algebra (Grades 8-12 Only) Mathematics 019 Geometry (Grades 9-12 Only) Mathematics 020 Trigonometry (Grades 9-12 Only) Mathematics 022 French Foreign Languages 023 German Foreign Languages 024 Latin Foreign Languages 025 Spanish Foreign Languages 026 Other Foreign Language Foreign Languages 033 Art Art 034 Vocal Music Music 035 Instrumental Music Music 048 Earth/Space Science (Grades 9-12 Only) Science 049 Physical Science (Middle Grades Only) Science 055 Self Contained Self-Contained (K-5) 058 Language Arts (Grades 1-8 Only) Language Arts/Reading 059 English as a Second Language English and Language Arts/Reading 068 Japanese Foreign Languages 069 Russian Foreign Languages 083 Title I Remedial Reading Language Arts/Reading 2
084 Title I Remedial Math Mathematics 088 Basic and/or General Math Mathematics 333 Italian Foreign Languages 334 Hebrew Foreign Languages 335 Korean Foreign Languages 336 Polish Foreign Languages 337 Greek Foreign Languages 339 Calculus (Grades 9-12 Only) Mathematics 346 Biological Sciences (Middle Grades Only) Science 347 Botany (Grades 9-12 Only) Science 348 Environmental Science (Grades 5-12 Only) Science 349 Physiology (Grades 9-12 Only) Science 350 Zoology (Grades 9-12 Only) Science 353 World History (Grades 9-12 Only) History 354 U.S. History (Grades 9-12 Only) History 360 Political Science/Civics (Grades 9-12 Only) Civics and Government 376 Reading Specialist Language Arts/Reading Two new assignment codes have replaced the original 332 Chinese: 330 Chinese Cantonese Foreign Languages 331 Chinese Mandarin Foreign Languages Two new assignment codes have been added for middle grades history and geography, both of which are NCLB core academic subject areas: 355 History (Middle Grades Only) History 356 Geography (Middle Grades Only) Geography Middle grades social science has been changed from 359 - Social Science (Middle Grades Only) to 359 - General Social Studies (Middle Grades Only) and is not considered a NCLB core academic subject area as this assignment should only be used for teachers teaching a course that is a general overview or survey of all social sciences at the middle grades level. 2005-2006 359 Social Science (Middle Grades Only) assignment codes will not be rolled over to the 2006-2007 data in order that districts can review these teachers and select the appropriate assignment code. TSR Position Code Updates There have also been several additions to TSR position codes in order to report Special Education Teachers that are highly qualified. 43 Occupational Therapist 44 Physical Therapist 45 Audiologist 47 Interpreter Special Education Teacher Updates In the past districts have reported the following assignment areas for Special Education Teachers (Position Code 18): 067 Early Childhood (Self-Contained Pre-K) 076 Specific Learning Disability (LD) 3
079 Speech and Language Impaired 081 Visually Impaired 097 Cross Categorical 165 Specialized Vocational Education 167 Alternative Education 361 Autism 362 Emotionally Disturbed (SED) 363 Hearing Impairment 364 Mental Retardation (EMH, TMH) 365 Orthopedic Impairment (PH) 367 Traumatic Brain Injured 401 Curriculum Specialist 402 Adaptive P.E. 404 Learning Behavior Specialist I Changes to TSR for the 2006-2007 school year will include clearing the assignment codes rolled over from the 2005-2006 school year for Special Education Teachers (Position Code 18) in order that districts can review all Special Education Teacher assignments and enter the appropriate disability assignment codes and core academic subject areas for those teachers responsible for delivering academic content. If some special education teachers are acting only as consultative (resource) teachers, you need not pick a subject area of assignment. Districts should enter the disability assignment codes first and then follow these with the subject area content codes. New special education teachers of record for multiple core academic subjects who are highly qualified in science, mathematics or language arts are allowed two years from the date of employment to become highly qualified in the remaining subjects and they may be allowed to use HOUSSE after the first year. To report such teachers as highly qualified, it is necessary to file form Request to Report Status of Bilingual, Special Education and Rural School Teachers as Highly Qualified for NCLB Purposes (ISBE 77-36). These teachers will then have a two year time period to meet the full federal requirements for any remaining area. Bilingual Teachers In the past districts have reported the following assignment areas for Bilingual Teachers (Position Codes 18, 19, 20, 22): 301 Bilingual Education - Arabic 302 Bilingual Education - Assyrian 303 Bilingual Education - Bulgarian 304 Bilingual Education - Cambodian (Khmer) 305 Bilingual Education - Cantonese 306 Bilingual Education - Greek 307 Bilingual Education - Gujarati 308 Bilingual Education - Haitian Creole 309 Bilingual Education - Hindi 310 Bilingual Education - Italian 311 Bilingual Education - Japanese 312 Bilingual Education - Korean 313 Bilingual Education - Lao 314 Bilingual Education - Lithuanian 315 Bilingual Education - Malayalam 316 Bilingual Education - Mandarin 317 Bilingual Education - Polish 318 Bilingual Education - Romanian 319 Bilingual Education - Russian 4
320 Bilingual Education - Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian 321 Bilingual Education - Spanish 322 Bilingual Education - Taiwanese 323 Bilingual Education - Ukrainian 324 Bilingual Education - Urdu 325 Bilingual Education Vietnamese ISBE also needs to collect data on the core academic subject areas that these teachers are teaching in addition to the fact that they are teaching in a bilingual setting. Districts should continue reporting one of the bilingual assignment codes listed above in the assignment 1 column and added the core academic assignment codes in assignment column 2 through 7. TSR has been modified to require districts selecting one of the bilingual assignment codes list above to also report at least one non-bilingual subject code in assignment 2; and as many as appropriate through assignment 7. Note: Bilingual education teachers must hold a regular teaching certificate and meet the NCLB requirements for each core subject to which they are assigned to be considered HQ; however, there are allowances for teachers who hold only transitional bilingual certificates to be considered HQ for three years if they meet specific requirements. ISBE has developed a new form Request to Report Status of Bilingual, Special Education and Rural School Teachers as Highly Qualified for NCLB Purposes (ISBE 77-36) to allow districts to report bilingual teachers who hold only a transitional bilingual certificate as highly qualified if: the teacher is enrolled in an approved program for the assignment; the teacher has passed the required Illinois content area test for each core assignment; the district is providing high quality induction and training program; the district is providing high quality professional development; and the program will be completed within three years from the time approval is granted. English as a Second Language Teachers English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers are required to be HQ in the core academic subject areas they are teaching. Generally these teachers will need to be HQ in English and/or Language Arts/Reading; as well as any other core subject area they may be teaching. District should report 059 English as a Second Language in the assignment one field and report other core academic subject assignment codes in assignment 2 through 7. NCLB and HOUSSE in ECS and TCIS ECS and TCIS screens are currently being developed to display NCLB HQ subject areas by educator. The ECS screen to display this data is as follows: 5
HQ method codes have been developed to denote the method by which the educator is highly qualified. These designations are listed above. ISBE is currently mapping NBPTS credentials, degree majors, other state content exams, HOUSSE, advanced degree areas, constructed majors (32 semester hours), and IL Master level certificate areas to the TSR NCLB core academic subject areas to determine each educator s assignment and HQ status. With this data ISBE will be able to report HQ status and percentages by educators, building, districts, regions, and state-wide. ISBE will also be able to determine non- HQ teachers. ISBE will also be able to join this data with other district data, for example low income, etc. ECS screens are being developed to allow educators to enter their HQ qualifications via HOUSSE (based on the completion of IFT or IEA worksheets), other state s content exams, and NBPTS. ECS will utilize existing state data to automatically determine HQ based on the other methods. Small Rural School Teachers in Multiple Assignments A degree of flexibility has been afforded for middle grades and secondary level teachers who are employed in rural schools, which are defined as schools in districts that are eligible to participate in the Small Rural School Achievement (SRSA) program (for a list, see the website of the U.S. Department of Education at http://www.ed.gov/programs/reapsrsa/eligible04/index.html). A middle grades and secondary level teacher in this situation who was first employed on or before August 1, 2005, who teaches multiple core academic subjects, and who is highly qualified in one of those subjects will be considered highly qualified in the other subjects taught through the end of the 2006-07 school year, after which time he or she will be subject to the requirements for the additional core academic subjects taught and may use the HOUSSE criteria as applicable. 6
A middle grades and secondary level teacher in this situation who was first employed after August 1, 2005, who teaches multiple core academic subjects, and who is highly qualified in one of those subjects will be considered highly qualified in the other subjects taught for a period of three years after the date of first employment, after which time he or she will be subject to the requirements for the additional core academic subjects taught and may use the HOUSSE criteria as applicable. A district may take advantage of this flexibility if o it provides high-quality professional development that increases the teachers' content knowledge in the additional subjects they teach and o it provides mentoring or a program of support so that teachers become highly qualified in the additional core academic subjects they each.. Districts wishing to report the HQ status of teachers in either group may do so on ISBE form Request to Report Status of Bilingual, Special Education and Rural School Teachers as Highly Qualified for NCLB Purposes (ISBE 77-36) 7